As part of Microsoft’s seemingly endless initiative to put its Xbox Live services on every available platform, the company has announced yesterday that it will feature the online service for three mobile games.
Microsoft made the joint announcement with mobile gaming company Gameloft, who is the developer behind the three titles in question: Asphalt 9: Legends, Asphalt 8: Airborne and Dragon Mania Legends. The feature sees these titles get support for its early build of the Xbox Live SDK for both iOS and Android devices.
It has been more than a month now since the initiative was first announced by Microsoft, with the company aiming to put the services included in Xbox Live on mobile platforms. These include achievements, gamerscore, friend lists, family settings and Xbox Live security measures. By implementing this, mobile game developers will be able to develop and integrate games into the Xbox Live ecosystem, a move which they have initially done with the multi-platform release of Minecraft.
"If you watch what we've done, especially with Minecraft, over the past few years, we've taken Xbox Live to as many platforms as Minecraft is on as possible," says Kareem Choudhry, Microsoft CVP of Gaming Cloud, in a press statement. "We're uniting those communities together with a consistent, singular experience for all of those gamers.
The three Gameloft titles are expected to make full use of achievements, friends lists and leaderboards, additions which will no doubt be fully welcome, seeing as the titles are very much multiplayer-oriented.
It’s not going to end with mobile phones, though. A similar Xbox Live pairing was teased for eventual support on the Nintendo Switch, which came with Cuphead’s official announcement on the console.
Microsoft is going all-out with its prioritization of digital titles, it would seem. Just last month, the company announced the all-new All-Digital Xbox One S, which can only play digital titles, but costs significantly less than a regular Xbox One S. Microsoft has also announced the combination of both Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass to form the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a singular subscription service featuring everything both has to offer.
The Xbox Live updates and official Microsoft support for these three Gameloft titles are expected to come some time this year.
